WordPress.tv: the shape of things to come, blow-by-blow

Making WordPress.tv – the future, now

We’ve just switched on Making WordPress.tv, a development blog with real-time updates on what’s cooking at WordPress.tv labs. It makes use of the freshly launched P2 theme, which you can use yourself on your WordPress.com blog (coming to a self-hosted blog near you, soon).

So what’s the idea with having a WordPress.tv dev blog?

For one, to give you at-a-glance, real time updates of what’s being made, features under consideration, and content underway.We’re big fans of transparency, and this is really an experiment into how making the process of putting out a stream of bite-sized development updates in public might make for an all round better experience for everyone.

But the idea goes a bit deeper than that. In sharing the process, ideas on what could be better, and the day-to-day running of things, we’re inviting you to have your say, share your ideas, and help shape the way WordPress.tv evolves over time. We’re still only just getting warmed up, and for major signposts you’ll be able to check in here in the WordPress.tv blog. But if you want to get a bit more up close and personal, or are just interested in what goes on behind the scenes, Making WordPress.tv is there for you.

Things you’ve been telling us= the future of WordPress.tv

We’ve had some excellent feedback from you, and encourage you to share more of it – through the content form up there in the menu, or directly on the WordPress.tv dev blog as it unfolds. Some of the things you’ve been asking about include:

Making it easier to experience WordPress.tv in your language

Being able to subscribe to content in your RSS reader or podcatcher app (read Miro or iTunes)

Being able to download content for the sake of portability

We made our first step towards making WordPress.tv a global community by adding language filtering recently. I wrote about it yesterday. This is, of course, a small step, and we’re starting to receive lots of ideas about what we could do to push things further in this direction for the international WordPress community. I’m looking forward to seeing how that unfolds.

As for being able to subscribe to feeds of your favorite categories, or a global feed – and by extension of that, download content – these are features that aren’t too far away. We’re fans of being able to take your media with you, whichever way you choose to access it – and I personally can’t wait to be able to subscribe to WordPress.tv feeds in, say, Miro or iTunes. Stay tuned.

WordPress.tv needs you

As always, we’re keen to hear your ideas, to share your videos, and to make WordPress.tv easier and more enjoyable for you to use. Every video you submit is reviewed, every idea logged, and every email responded to. If you experience differently, let us know – we’re all ears.

As always, your comments are welcome here, and of course on the new dev blog.